The funny thing about this is that since 1945, France keeps and uses the majority of the gold reserves of 14 former French colonies in West and Central Africa and uses that power to make them use the CFA Franc, a currency pegged formerly to the French Franc but now of course to the Euro [1].

It's worth noting that the stated reason here isn't because of, say, US instability but rather "standardizing" the gold. It doesn't say what that means but I assume France is basically selling some New York held nonstandard gold to "standard" gold held in France. "Standard" here probably means a given size and purity. Yes, there are different purity levels to gold. So think the heavy bullion bars you see on movies.

[1]: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-france-backed-afr...